Wednesday, 2 March 2011

The Easter Rooster?

I couldn't believe my eyes today ... there HE was ... a brightly coloured Easter Rooster!!! Indeed, there was a whole box of them! Easter chicks have been around for a long time and I have a huge collection of knitted ones ... but Easter Roosters? No!

To make the image even more incongruous - there is an egg inside him! A chocolate egg about the size of a bantam's. And inside that there is a tiny handful of mini Smarties!
Maybe there are only so many versions of Easter chicks and Easter bunnies that Smarties decided that the Rooster would serve as this year's symbol for the celebrations. Who knows? Maybe it doesn't seem so odd to other people ... but having grown up around hens and roosters ... you know which is which!! And you certainly don't associate eggs with roosters!

It is all part of the build up to Easter ... though we have to go through Lent first. The signs are all around us ... and the choir is already preparing the Easter anthems full of Alleluias and a sense of joy.
This is the season that brings us right to the centre of the Christian faith as we walk through the weeks of preparation to experience again the Passion Narrative and come to the dawn of Easter day!
That's where it all comes together.
God breaks the power of sin and death.
Jesus' words, "I am the resurrection and the life" ring true.
So, chick, rooster or rabbit ... just the frothy bits around a story that is beyond time, beyond imagination and from which we find strength to face the whole of life whatever that turns out to be.

Christ is now risen againfrom his death and all his pain;therefore we will merry be,and rejoice with him gladly. Kyrieleison.Had he not risen again,we had been lost, this is plain:but since he is risen in deed,let us love him all with speed.Kyrieleison.Now is a time of gladness,to sing of the Lord's goodness:therefore glad now will we be,and rejoice in him only.Kyrieleison.

Elizabeth the Rector

I'm a Parish Priest in Belfast.
After reading geography at Queen's University, Belfast I began a teaching career in Lurgan Technical College. Then, after three years of further study in London Bible College (The London School of Theology) I began teaching Religious Studies in Kilkeel - in the school where I'd been a pupil!
In 1999 I resigned from that post and began a two year course in Dublin; both at the Church of Ireland Theological College and The Milltown Institute, in preparation for the ordained ministry.
The curacy years were in Bangor Abbey and then I moved to the country as rector of two small parish churches.
In 2008 I accepted a call to Saint Nicholas' on the Lisburn Road in Belfast.
Keep up to date with the church information at:
http://saintnicholasparishchurchbelfast.shutterfly.com/